Adelabu to World Bank: Past administrations to blame for power sector rot

Adebayo Adelabu, minister of power, has blamed the rot in the sector on the neglect of past administrations.

In a statement on Wednesday, Bolaji Tunji, special adviser on strategic communications and media relations, said Adelabu made the comments while hosting the World Bank delegation in his office in Abuja.

The minister blamed the previous governments for the degeneration that the sector is passing through, noting that there has been significant improvement since President Bola Tinubu took over.

According to Adelabu, the issue of the power sector is of utmost concern to the president and he has given total support to all efforts at making the sector work.

He acknowledged the support of development partners, especially the World Bank, across various segments of the power sector — including generation, transmission, distribution, and renewable energy.

The minister implored them to continue in that spirit to ensure that the investment of the current administration succeeds.

“We’ve seen your support in transmission, we’ve seen your support in distribution, we have seen your support in renewable energy, almost in every facet, even in generation,” Adelabu said.

“One thing that this administration has brought to the table is the seriousness, the determination, the commitment to make sure that the power sector is transformed.

“There is very little you can achieve in your agriculture sector, in  your transportation sector,  in your defense, education, health; without stable and efficient electricity supply. That is why the President is really focusing on this, and he is supporting whatever we need to do to make sure that we transform this sector. He is ready to give us that support.”

He acknowledged that previous attempts to reform the power sector yielded little or no results.

“We actually have a past that we are not proud of. Over the years, we have only been paying lip service to transforming the power sector. We have not worked the talk,” he said.

“Previous administrations have kept on doing the same thing all the time and you cannot get different results for that, which is why we have decided to do things differently this time. In all the segments across the sector, we must run away from the past.”

‘NEGLECT OF POWER INFRASTRUCTURE OVER THE YEARS INCREASING CHALLENGES’

The minister said the neglect of critical power infrastructure over the years — including thousands of kilometres of transmission lines and hundreds of thousands of transformers — has deepened the challenges in the sector.

“How will you explain the kind of infrastructure that we put together for our transmission network across the country? Thousands of kilometers of power line, thousands of power transformers, hundreds of thousands of distribution transformers that we have not maintained over time and expect them to keep sustaining our energy supply. It is not possible,” Adelabu said.

“How do we allow our people to be vandalising infrastructure and expect stable electricity? So how do you have a sector with over 12 million customers and our meter is not more than six million and we expect to have a stable industry? No, it’s not possible. So what has happened with past governments?

“In 1984, when the military was in power here, we achieved a 2000 megawatts. Between 1984 and 2023, it took us 40 years to add additional 2000 megawatts. Now we have an average of 5,800 megawatts generation within one and a half years that we came to the office.

“What I’m saying is that, if the past administrations have been adding things like this, we will not be where we are today. And that is why I said that President Tinubu is actually laying the kind of foundation that we need for our country to grow.”

He also criticised the Muhammadu Buhari administration for stalling on the Siemens power deal signed in 2019.

“We entered into Siemens contract since 2019. We never lifted a finger until 2023, when this government came on board. So you can now imagine since this President came in and now look at the mileage we have achieved,” he said.

The minister, however, noted that the pilot phase of the Siemens power project is nearly complete in under two years, expressing confidence in a brighter future for the power sector.